


Driving Rain

by Savageandwise



Series: You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) [3]
Category: Music RPF, Real Person Fiction, The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Dreamsharing, Househusband years, M/M, Phone Calls, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageandwise/pseuds/Savageandwise
Summary: "Are you drunk?"
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Series: You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1144103
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Driving Rain

**Author's Note:**

> I put in elements from Call me back again, #9 dream and the song I got the title from, Driving Rain.
> 
> I love anything having to do with John and Paul dreamsharing...sorry if it doesn't strictly follow the prompt. Haha.

"I keep having the same dream. I think it's a dream. Maybe it's really happening. Do you have it too?"

There is a long pause and that crackle of distance down the phone line. For a moment John thinks he's got the wrong number. Or that Linda picked up and she's sat there trying to figure out what to say. No. It's Paul. He can feel it. He always could. The way he never needed his glasses to see him. The way he knew he was in the room without even looking around. If he were blind and deaf he'd know Paul. 

"Are you drunk?" Paul says at last. 

"Forget it." He's angry now, heat blossoming on his cheeks. Once upon a time they were so in sync their dreams were the same. They don't even speak the same language now.

"Tell me the dream."

It's an olive branch. John lights a cigarette, takes his sweet time. He leans his head against the headboard and sighs. 

"I'm in New Orleans and it's Mardi Gras. The streets are fucking packed. People in masks, dripping in beads. I can't see where I'm going. I'm just tripping along and the pavement is humming. The way New York used to feel when I first moved here. I can see you up ahead on a float covered in crepe and sequins, your chest is bare, painted with glitter. You've shaved off that ridiculous moustache. I chase after the float but I can't keep up."

"Seems pretty straightforward to me," Paul says. "You don't need to be a psychologist to interpret it. Sounds like someone is feeling guilty about not stopping by while I was recording in New Orleans."

John lets out a sound of protest. 

"It's New Orleans but unrecognisable," Paul says before John can speak. "Like everything has been washed away by a storm. The streets are empty. Littered with junk: beads and paper cups, discarded masks. The river is overflowing, I'm knee-deep in the muck. You're on a boat but you can't steer it. You've got it all wrong and you're sailing in circles. You're sailing right into the tempest."

"You made that up," John says accusingly. "Laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?" 

"No, darling," Paul says gently.

"I wanted to come…" John begins. He lets the words trail off. He'd wanted to come, he'd planned to.

"Then you chose her instead." There are layers of hurt in those five words. 

A long time ago John asked Paul to choose too, between his father and John. Paul chose John. The problem with Paul is he never gave John an ultimatum. He never said it's her or me. So John chose her instead.

"You could've called," Paul says. "I waited. I waited the whole trip. I called...I…"

"What?" John asks insistently. "What did you do?"

"I thought if I could send you a message. You'd hear me, you'd call me back. So I tried...I..."

John remembers that magnetic pull, his name ringing out through the driving rain. At the time he thought it was Yoko, calling him home. 

"You called my name. It was you," John says.

Paul is silent on the other end and then he sighs. "We keep missing each other. It's like when we'd do those concerts in stadiums. Where we couldn't hear a bloody thing over the audience. And we'd all be playing different parts of different songs at the same time."

John can't help but laugh. "No one could tell the difference. Everyone heard what they wanted to hear."

"Exactly. That's why we had to give it up in the end."

"We didn't give it up," John says. It's only just occurred to him. "We just found another way to get the message out."

It didn't matter what song they were singing. The point was they were filling that silence, calling out to each other from separate shores. The point wasn't whether or not it was the same dream. The point was to keep on dreaming.


End file.
